India Legal: National: Monday, March 12, 2018.
Questions
pertaining to diet plans, medical records and case files are being routinely
asked by Tihar inmates through RTI
It is not
only lawyers and NGOs who seek information about prison inmates in various
jails under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. The Act has also become
immensely popular among prisoners in Tihar Prison Complex, one of the highest
security prisons in India.
From their
diet plans, medical records, evidence in their case files, to inquiring about
their release dates, the inmates are using their right to information in every
possible way. In January, the prison received 59 applications, with an average
of two queries per day. “The queries are varied. They ask about the quantity of
milk distributed every day, whether kheer is provided as per the schedule, if
sugar or jaggery is added in kheer, details of the doctor and medicines,
missing facilities, and so on,” said a prison official.
EMPOWERED
PRISONERS
The inmates
seek information from courts, investigating agencies and the police with the
hope that it might prove useful in their defence. While some of them file only
once, many persist continuously, he said. Most of the RTIs are filed by
undertrails. “The RTI Act is a guaranteed right under Section 19 of the
Constitution. A prisoner can seek information using the guaranteed right about
the facilities being made available to him in jail,” former state information
commissioner of Uttar Pradesh Brijesh Kumar Mishra had observed in the case of
convict Gulab who was incarcerated in Varanasi jail and had sought information
through RTI.
It is mostly
the inmates who have been in jail for several years who help others in filing
the RTI queries. One of them was RK Sharma, a former IPS officer, who served
more than nine years in Tihar. He was convicted for the murder of journalist
Shivani Bhatnagar. He used to file at least one RTI application every month. It
was his letter to the chief justice of the Delhi High Court in 2008 that
expedited the process of providing telephone facilities to the inmates. Now,
all nine jails within the Tihar complex provide this facility to the inmates on
the basis of their track record. Sharma had also enquired about the criteria
followed for paying wages to inmates, maintenance cost of inmates and payroll
facilities in Tihar.
Some RTIs
indirectly allege that prison officials have misbehaved, said another official.
“Queries about the quality of food and supplies are common. Some have alleged
that we deprive the inmates of the proper quantity of milk and sell the extra
stock in the black market. We try and answer these as best as we can,” he said.
Shehjad, an
inmate, asked through his RTI application: “If non-volunteers do not get their
quota of milk, does that stock of milk go into the black market? Which officer
is responsible for deficiency in distribution of milk in central jail number 5
in Tihar?”
Prisoners
also often file RTIs to access their case reports and question the authenticity
of the prosecution evidence in court. In one such case, the police claimed that
the convict was arrested in Rohini in Delhi but according to him, he was
arrested in Moradabad. To prove this, the inmate sought the details of his
arrest, names of the policemen involved in his arrest and their call details
through RTI.
RTI is also
used to access medical records which the inmates do not have access to. Such
records are used for bail.
JUSTICE
THROUGH RTI
OP Gandhi was
arrested in a cheque bouncing case on November 23, 2010. Though he was granted
bail after a month, he was convicted on November 26, 2013, and sentenced to a
year’s imprisonment in Tihar. His sentence was till October 24, 2014, but he
earned a remission of 83 days. He was to be released on August 2, 2014, but was
illegally detained for an extra 18 days. He filed 36 RTIs enquiring about his
illegal detention. When he approached the Central Information Commission, the
commissioner directed the Tihar authorities and the Delhi government to pay suitable
compensation and Rs 1,000 for detaining
him beyond his sentence.
He had filed
several RTI applications to ascertain the reasons for non-payment of wages. The
public information officer of the concerned jail had claimed that there were no
dues. When Gandhi showed the attendance sheet marked by the medical officer
(MO) in charge, claiming that he had done menial jobs like data entry, the
superintendent and deputy superintendent stated that the MO had no authority to
mark attendance. Hence, they would not consider it as work for which they must
pay remuneration. They said that the senior MO could not issue such an
attendance sheet unless sought by the authority. Gandhi claimed that he had
worked with the SMO in January, February and for 15 days in March, but he did
not get his wages for these days. After examining, the appellate authority
directed the concerned officials to release his wages.
Such reforms
were started when Kiran Bedi took over Tihar Jail in the 1990s. It is obvious
that the RTI Act is bringing about a change for these prisoners.
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